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A review by blancwene
Starfighters of Adumar by Aaron Allston
4.0
For 2020, I decided to reread (in publication order) all the Bantam-era Star Wars books that were released between 1991 and 1999; that shakes out to 38 adult novels and 5 anthologies of short stories & novellas.
This week’s focus: the fourth of Aaron Allston’s X-Wing books, Starfighters of Adumar.
SOME HISTORY:
During a panel at Jedi-Con in 2004, Aaron Allston revealed that he derived the name of the planet Adumar from Alexandre Dumas, the author of [b:The Three Musketeers|7190|The Three Musketeers (The D'Artagnan Romances, #1)|Alexandre Dumas|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320436982l/7190._SY75_.jpg|1263212]. He also alluded to similarities between the main characters of The Three Musketeers and the four X-wing pilots in Starfighters of Adumar; although there’s no direct correlations, I think that Wes Janson has some very Porthos-like qualities. (But while Wedge is the leader, he’s not a sad alcoholic with an evil ex like Athos.) Starfighters of Adumar made it to number seventeen on the New York Times paperback bestseller list for the week of August 29, 1999.
MY RECOLLECTION OF THE BOOK:
I loved this book. Allston’s humor skews more overtly silly in this one, but I thought it felt appropriate to the swashbuckling adventure that the Rogues were on.
A BRIEF SUMMARY:
Wedge Antilles and three of his fellow Rogues are sent to the neutral world of Adumar as diplomatic envoys. It appears the perfect assignment: the pilots are feted by a general populace that holds fighter pilots in high regard. But Wedge quickly realizes that things are not as they seem, and their exercise in diplomacy becomes filled with peril...
THE CHARACTERS:
If [b:I, Jedi|758654|I, Jedi (Star Wars)|Michael A. Stackpole|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327870262l/758654._SY75_.jpg|1134006] depicted Wedge Antilles in the midst of a quarter life crisis, by Starfighters of Adumar he's at a crossroads in both his personal and professional life. He's broken up with Qwi Xux, both of them realizing that they don't visualize a future with each other; he has no family left, and practically no friends outside of the Rogues. He's ready to leave for some needed time off when General Cracken manipulates him into becoming the diplomatic envoy to Adumar.
He quickly begins to question whether they would even want the Adumari in the New Republic. They're obsessed with honor, they have no regard for human life (their duels and feuds usually end with one or more party dead), and Wedge rightly worries that those two qualities wouldn't translate well into NR service. He tries to get the Adumari pilots to think about strategy and the effectiveness of simulations vs just outright killing your opponent, but he's fighting an uphill battle against entrenched beliefs. It doesn't help that their diplomatic liaison, Tomer Darpen, would prefer that they adopt the more bloodthirsty tactics of Turr Phennir and the other Imperials.
Wedge is also offered a chance to rekindle his relationship with Iella Wessiri--and indeed, that seems to be a key motivation behind this book. [b:Solo Command|773547|Solo Command (Star Wars X-Wing, #7)|Aaron Allston|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327942075l/773547._SY75_.jpg|352704] wrapped up the Wraiths' arc; [b:Isard's Revenge|422569|Isard's Revenge (Star Wars X-Wing, #8)|Michael A. Stackpole|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1424084400l/422569._SY75_.jpg|2696915] mostly concluded the Rogues'. But after the Thrawn campaign, it takes Wedge four long years and another relationship before things get sorted with Iella. I wouldn't say that romance is one of Allston's strengths, but I liked the understated, mature way that Wedge and Iella figured things out.
On Allston's now defunct FAQ page, he mentioned that people had questioned why Corran Horn wasn't a member of the diplomatic envoy. Fortunately there are multiple hypothetical answers to that! Corran probably was in command of Rogue Squadron during Tycho's absence; Corran might have been working on Jedi stuff; his son Valin Horn was born the same year as the mission to Adumar (13ABY). So take your pick.
But Wedge isn’t alone on this diplomatic mission: he brings Tycho Celchu, Wes Janson, and Derek “Hobbie” Klivian along with him. Tycho is the perfect second-hand man, steady and responsible. He’s gone through so much in his life--the destruction of Alderaan, his imprisonment on the Lusankya, the distrust he faced from the NR after his escape--yet as Janson so ably pointed out, he’s the only one in their quartet who has a happy, settled personal life.
Meanwhile, Wes and Hobbie are our main comic relief. You can tell that they are long-time friends, because they play off each other so well. The two of them toss zingers back and forth off each other for as long as Wedge will allow. Wes is the class clown, even when he’s challenging someone to a duel to protect Cheriss; Hobbie is more of a sad clown. Hobbie also gets some of my favorite scenes, in particular the bit during the gauntlet where they sneak onto the airbase.
The Cartann court gives them all nicknames, which Janson revels in. Janson is "the darling one," Tycho is "the doleful one," Hobbie is "the dour one," and Wedge is "the diligent one." (This all feels very à la Alexandre Dumas père to me.)
But their diplomatic mission would not be complete without support staff. Cheriss ke Hanadi is their local guide, the absolute best duelist in Cartann. She develops a crush on Wedge (understandable), tries to throw her life away for reasons of “honor,” and has her entire worldview upended when she learns that her fear of heights that held her back from becoming a pilot is just a chemical imbalance in her brain. She grows up a lot over the course of the book. We also meet Hallis Saper, the mission’s documentarian, who is imminently equipped for espionage and disinformation.
Our true villain in the book is actually not the Imperials, but their liaison/NR Intelligence boss, Tomer Darpen. Janson is familiar with him from his days with the Tierfon Yellow Aces, when he was super sleazy. He’s not gotten any better in the intervening years: he is completely opposed to Wedge questioning Adumari values, and repeatedly insists that the Rogues behave like their Imperial counterparts. After Wedge refuses to fly with Cartann’s forces against the other Adumari countries, Darpen essentially tries to have them assassinated.
On the Imperial side, Admiral Rogriss (previously seen in [b:Solo Command|773547|Solo Command (Star Wars X-Wing, #7)|Aaron Allston|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327942075l/773547._SY75_.jpg|352704]) is having his own personal crisis. He knows that despite giving their word, the Imperials plan to devastate the planet if they side with the New Republic. But instead of interrogating his feelings on the matter, Rogriss just gets drunk. It’s ultimately up to Wedge to sway him away from the Imperial side and help Adumar in some small way.
ISSUES:
Compared to the other X-Wing books, Starfighters of Adumar stands alone. While it helps to be familiar with Wedge, Tycho, and the rest, I don’t think you necessarily need to have read all the Rogue and Wraith books to appreciate this one. But as a consequence of its stand-alone nature, the scale of the story feels much lesser compared to previous X-Wing books. In [b:The Bacta War|513201|The Bacta War (Star Wars X-Wing, #4)|Michael A. Stackpole|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327941683l/513201._SY75_.jpg|501178], Isard has taken over Thyferra, which has a stranglehold on the entire galaxy’s supply of bacta; in [b:Solo Command|773547|Solo Command (Star Wars X-Wing, #7)|Aaron Allston|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327942075l/773547._SY75_.jpg|352704], both the NR and the Imperials team up to take out Warlord Zsinj. But in SoA, we just deal with one small world--sure, it has loads of factories that could produce loads of proton torpedoes for either side, but it’s still just one world.
On the humor scale, SoA is perhaps excessively silly. The Adumari culture is feudalism dialed up to eleven: they’re obsessed with HONOR, they constantly fight duels like it’s 17th century France or 18th century Britain, they have funny accents (“Rayd Flayt” instead of “Red Flight”), and they love capes. This is perhaps too much silliness for some people, but I enjoyed it.
Wedge has great concern over killing the Adumari in flight actions--but during the penultimate battle, he shoots down a lot of them. They were just trying to kill him, and Wedge is acting to remove an unjust ruler, but it did strike me as a little sad that he ended up killing so many of them. (The moral predicaments of war, I guess.)
IN CONCLUSION:
To me, Starfighters of Adumar is a high point of the Bantam era. We really get to dig into Wedge's character, we get some great humor, we get a bonkers new society, and we get resolution to Wedge and Iella's relationship. I also enjoyed Tycho, Janson, and Hobbie getting their moment in the spotlight. (It is also very silly.)
Next up: the fifth Tales collection, [b:Tales from the New Republic|368214|Tales from the New Republic (Star Wars)|Peter Schweighofer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1403182226l/368214._SY75_.jpg|358201], edited by Peter Schweighofer and Craig Carey.
My YouTube review: https://youtu.be/RgnRu3JzFsQ
This week’s focus: the fourth of Aaron Allston’s X-Wing books, Starfighters of Adumar.
SOME HISTORY:
During a panel at Jedi-Con in 2004, Aaron Allston revealed that he derived the name of the planet Adumar from Alexandre Dumas, the author of [b:The Three Musketeers|7190|The Three Musketeers (The D'Artagnan Romances, #1)|Alexandre Dumas|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320436982l/7190._SY75_.jpg|1263212]. He also alluded to similarities between the main characters of The Three Musketeers and the four X-wing pilots in Starfighters of Adumar; although there’s no direct correlations, I think that Wes Janson has some very Porthos-like qualities. (But while Wedge is the leader, he’s not a sad alcoholic with an evil ex like Athos.) Starfighters of Adumar made it to number seventeen on the New York Times paperback bestseller list for the week of August 29, 1999.
MY RECOLLECTION OF THE BOOK:
I loved this book. Allston’s humor skews more overtly silly in this one, but I thought it felt appropriate to the swashbuckling adventure that the Rogues were on.
A BRIEF SUMMARY:
Wedge Antilles and three of his fellow Rogues are sent to the neutral world of Adumar as diplomatic envoys. It appears the perfect assignment: the pilots are feted by a general populace that holds fighter pilots in high regard. But Wedge quickly realizes that things are not as they seem, and their exercise in diplomacy becomes filled with peril...
THE CHARACTERS:
If [b:I, Jedi|758654|I, Jedi (Star Wars)|Michael A. Stackpole|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327870262l/758654._SY75_.jpg|1134006] depicted Wedge Antilles in the midst of a quarter life crisis, by Starfighters of Adumar he's at a crossroads in both his personal and professional life. He's broken up with Qwi Xux, both of them realizing that they don't visualize a future with each other; he has no family left, and practically no friends outside of the Rogues. He's ready to leave for some needed time off when General Cracken manipulates him into becoming the diplomatic envoy to Adumar.
He quickly begins to question whether they would even want the Adumari in the New Republic. They're obsessed with honor, they have no regard for human life (their duels and feuds usually end with one or more party dead), and Wedge rightly worries that those two qualities wouldn't translate well into NR service. He tries to get the Adumari pilots to think about strategy and the effectiveness of simulations vs just outright killing your opponent, but he's fighting an uphill battle against entrenched beliefs. It doesn't help that their diplomatic liaison, Tomer Darpen, would prefer that they adopt the more bloodthirsty tactics of Turr Phennir and the other Imperials.
Wedge is also offered a chance to rekindle his relationship with Iella Wessiri--and indeed, that seems to be a key motivation behind this book. [b:Solo Command|773547|Solo Command (Star Wars X-Wing, #7)|Aaron Allston|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327942075l/773547._SY75_.jpg|352704] wrapped up the Wraiths' arc; [b:Isard's Revenge|422569|Isard's Revenge (Star Wars X-Wing, #8)|Michael A. Stackpole|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1424084400l/422569._SY75_.jpg|2696915] mostly concluded the Rogues'. But after the Thrawn campaign, it takes Wedge four long years and another relationship before things get sorted with Iella. I wouldn't say that romance is one of Allston's strengths, but I liked the understated, mature way that Wedge and Iella figured things out.
On Allston's now defunct FAQ page, he mentioned that people had questioned why Corran Horn wasn't a member of the diplomatic envoy. Fortunately there are multiple hypothetical answers to that! Corran probably was in command of Rogue Squadron during Tycho's absence; Corran might have been working on Jedi stuff; his son Valin Horn was born the same year as the mission to Adumar (13ABY). So take your pick.
But Wedge isn’t alone on this diplomatic mission: he brings Tycho Celchu, Wes Janson, and Derek “Hobbie” Klivian along with him. Tycho is the perfect second-hand man, steady and responsible. He’s gone through so much in his life--the destruction of Alderaan, his imprisonment on the Lusankya, the distrust he faced from the NR after his escape--yet as Janson so ably pointed out, he’s the only one in their quartet who has a happy, settled personal life.
Meanwhile, Wes and Hobbie are our main comic relief. You can tell that they are long-time friends, because they play off each other so well. The two of them toss zingers back and forth off each other for as long as Wedge will allow. Wes is the class clown, even when he’s challenging someone to a duel to protect Cheriss; Hobbie is more of a sad clown. Hobbie also gets some of my favorite scenes, in particular the bit during the gauntlet where they sneak onto the airbase.
The Cartann court gives them all nicknames, which Janson revels in. Janson is "the darling one," Tycho is "the doleful one," Hobbie is "the dour one," and Wedge is "the diligent one." (This all feels very à la Alexandre Dumas père to me.)
But their diplomatic mission would not be complete without support staff. Cheriss ke Hanadi is their local guide, the absolute best duelist in Cartann. She develops a crush on Wedge (understandable), tries to throw her life away for reasons of “honor,” and has her entire worldview upended when she learns that her fear of heights that held her back from becoming a pilot is just a chemical imbalance in her brain. She grows up a lot over the course of the book. We also meet Hallis Saper, the mission’s documentarian, who is imminently equipped for espionage and disinformation.
Our true villain in the book is actually not the Imperials, but their liaison/NR Intelligence boss, Tomer Darpen. Janson is familiar with him from his days with the Tierfon Yellow Aces, when he was super sleazy. He’s not gotten any better in the intervening years: he is completely opposed to Wedge questioning Adumari values, and repeatedly insists that the Rogues behave like their Imperial counterparts. After Wedge refuses to fly with Cartann’s forces against the other Adumari countries, Darpen essentially tries to have them assassinated.
On the Imperial side, Admiral Rogriss (previously seen in [b:Solo Command|773547|Solo Command (Star Wars X-Wing, #7)|Aaron Allston|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327942075l/773547._SY75_.jpg|352704]) is having his own personal crisis. He knows that despite giving their word, the Imperials plan to devastate the planet if they side with the New Republic. But instead of interrogating his feelings on the matter, Rogriss just gets drunk. It’s ultimately up to Wedge to sway him away from the Imperial side and help Adumar in some small way.
ISSUES:
Compared to the other X-Wing books, Starfighters of Adumar stands alone. While it helps to be familiar with Wedge, Tycho, and the rest, I don’t think you necessarily need to have read all the Rogue and Wraith books to appreciate this one. But as a consequence of its stand-alone nature, the scale of the story feels much lesser compared to previous X-Wing books. In [b:The Bacta War|513201|The Bacta War (Star Wars X-Wing, #4)|Michael A. Stackpole|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327941683l/513201._SY75_.jpg|501178], Isard has taken over Thyferra, which has a stranglehold on the entire galaxy’s supply of bacta; in [b:Solo Command|773547|Solo Command (Star Wars X-Wing, #7)|Aaron Allston|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327942075l/773547._SY75_.jpg|352704], both the NR and the Imperials team up to take out Warlord Zsinj. But in SoA, we just deal with one small world--sure, it has loads of factories that could produce loads of proton torpedoes for either side, but it’s still just one world.
On the humor scale, SoA is perhaps excessively silly. The Adumari culture is feudalism dialed up to eleven: they’re obsessed with HONOR, they constantly fight duels like it’s 17th century France or 18th century Britain, they have funny accents (“Rayd Flayt” instead of “Red Flight”), and they love capes. This is perhaps too much silliness for some people, but I enjoyed it.
Wedge has great concern over killing the Adumari in flight actions--but during the penultimate battle, he shoots down a lot of them. They were just trying to kill him, and Wedge is acting to remove an unjust ruler, but it did strike me as a little sad that he ended up killing so many of them. (The moral predicaments of war, I guess.)
IN CONCLUSION:
To me, Starfighters of Adumar is a high point of the Bantam era. We really get to dig into Wedge's character, we get some great humor, we get a bonkers new society, and we get resolution to Wedge and Iella's relationship. I also enjoyed Tycho, Janson, and Hobbie getting their moment in the spotlight. (It is also very silly.)
Next up: the fifth Tales collection, [b:Tales from the New Republic|368214|Tales from the New Republic (Star Wars)|Peter Schweighofer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1403182226l/368214._SY75_.jpg|358201], edited by Peter Schweighofer and Craig Carey.
My YouTube review: https://youtu.be/RgnRu3JzFsQ